On the objectives of the US military presence in Iraq:

I as well think it is all too suspicious that the reasoning and mission statement for our occupation has changed on a yearly basis since it started in 2003. I honestly don’t know what the army wants me to say let alone what I would say is my reason for being here? Am I helping the people of Iraq build a future democracy? I have never had the stomach for uttering the whole keeping America safe bullshit. Overall my guess would be we are here to make some contractors a couple trillion dollars under the guise of spreading freedom and keeping America safe. Perhaps there is some truth in the notion that America feared the Arab world and wanted to keep the fight over seas. Are we getting our hands on as much oil as possible? Saddam was so bad we had to do something. Fuck, take your pick, we’ll never really know.

On the ‘best resolution to this mess’:

If it can’t be done in eight years, nine is too fucking much sacrifice. Get the fuck out and give Iraqis their country back. It is their job now and they want it.

On Iraqi culture and the possibility of a democratic future in Iraq:

Iraq is very culturally diverse and the people here are very easy to interact with. I think perhaps what they don’t get is what democracy really means or what it means to have a democratic government. I think initially they thought that everything was going to be brilliant once Hussein was dealt with, but the reality that there are years and even decades of building a democracy to come with many hardships to endure is what the Iraqis didn’t see coming. I think that perhaps they are feeling misled that we are leaving their country so many years later and they are not being left with what they thought they would have. Most locals are happy that there country’s future will be in the people’s hands, but perhaps a bit scared or concerned that things will go back to the way they were. I guess as simply as I can say it–the Iraqi culture saw themselves becoming a distorted view of America once we took over their country. Everything was going to be like the television version of American that they had watched on MTV or Friends.

Well, I would like to introduce that Rand Paul to the Rand Paul who last Friday told Sean Hannity that he supported imprisonment or deportation for people who attend “radical political speeches.”

In answer to a question about racial profiling in airport security, Paul made the following statement:

I’m not for profiling people on the color of their skin, or on their religion, but I would take into account where they’ve been traveling and perhaps, you might have to indirectly take into account whether or not they’ve been going to radical political speeches by religious leaders. It wouldn’t be that they are Islamic. But if someone is attending speeches from someone who is promoting the violent overthrow of our government, that’s really an offense that we should be going after — they should be deported or put in prison.

There are many ironies to comment on here, but perhaps the most glaring (which, of course, the Internet has already noted) is the fact that many of Paul’s own supporters—namely, the Tea Partiers—seem to fall into the category of people who attend “radical political speeches” that promote “the violent overthrow of our government,” often conducted by “religious leaders.”